A closing argument
Election day is near, and the candidates are making their closing arguments. Who’s listening? For those of us who’ve already voted, literally nothing can change our vote, but for the 70 to 100 million Americans who will vote between now and election day, what can anyone say to impact their decision?
Trump has been talking his entire life to anyone who will listen, the more outrageous the better. After nearly 50 years of celebrity, he has provided a trove of quotable quotes, feeding and manipulating the media. He speaks his mind. He tells it like it is. He doesn’t talk like a politician. He goes off-script. He also exaggerates, bloviates, gaslights, and lies. He’s vulgar and rude, sometimes endorsing violence, even hate, telling Larry King in 1989, “maybe hate is what we need if we’re gonna get something done.”
On women [then]: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
On women [now]: “Whether they like it or not…”
On labor: “You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump flattered union-buster Elon Musk.
On voting: “Christians: Get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore! Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians….”
On people: “I don’t care about you, I just want your vote, I don’t care.”
On race: “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
On democracy: “Except for day one. After that I am not a dictator, OK?”
On the Constitution: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
On January 6th: “Nothing done wrong at all… that was a day of love.”
Perhaps no other issue highlights the fraud that Trump is perpetrating against this country more acutely than the flagrant re-branding of the violent insurrection on the Capitol, protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election at Trump’s behest. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he implored in his speech that morning. Now, it’s innocently referred to as J6. Five people died as a direct result of the violence, including one police officer. Four other officers who responded to the insurrection died by suicide within seven months of that tragic day.
In his revisionist history, Trump claimed, “There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down — this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love.” It was not a day of love. Whether the assault was the result of an orchestrated coup attempt or an angry demonstration turned chaotic and deadly, Trump is to blame. This will never not be true.
Many endorsements in this race have focused on Trump’s own words, some almost exclusively, making the race as much or more about the character and fitness of Trump himself than about explicit support for Kamala Harris. Lebron James’s recent video endorsement featured a montage of images from America’s violent struggle for civil rights overdubbed with Trump’s own voice, including dire warnings that the country would end up “like Detroit” and that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The video concluded with the written words, presumably James’s own, “Hate takes us back.”
On CNN, the day the video endorsement dropped, pundits debated whether the endorsement mattered and whether the video was effective. Political analyst Shermichael Singleton argued, “LeBron James grew up very humbly. He can certainly speak to poverty. He could have mentioned that in his endorsement. He could have talked about what it takes to accomplish certain things, and he could have said, and I’m supporting Kamala Harris because [of] all the things I’ve accomplished, I believe her policies will help a lot of other African Americans that Trump–”
Moderator Abby Phillip interrupted, “Do you concede that there might be some voters who might look at that ad and say, yes, I don’t want us to go back to a time when hate was driving the leaders of our country?” Singleton responded, “I would love to see some data, whether it’s quantitatively or qualitatively, that would lead me to believe that someone saw that ad and…said, oh my God, I already disliked Trump, and all of a sudden, I dislike him more. I don’t think that’s the case….”
Whether any of Trump’s words — let alone any of the things he’s done — are disqualifying is up to each individual voter. It’s true enough that voters are broadly seeking change. But there seems to be a real Trump amnesia in this election. Trump’s approval rating was 34% when he left office. Notably, while Republicans generally delivered consistently high ratings during the first Trump term, his overall rating was never above 50% and often below 40%, even before the pandemic. Biden’s rating is currently at 40%.
So where is a voter who wants change to look? And how can we compare the policies of a second Trump term to a possible Harris term? Republican party identification appears to be on the rise, and liberalism is playing defense. Democrat victories include the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, the CHIPS Act, and the poorly-named Inflation Reduction Act, which lowered drug prices and invested billions in infrastructure and renewable energy, among other things. Unfortunately, depending upon your perspective, as Nate Cohn pointed out this weekend, Democrats are also associated with movements and policy prescriptions that were or became controversial — Black Lives Matter, Defund the Police, #MeToo, and Woke-ism.
In fairness, the popularity of some of the policies associated with these movements depends upon who’s asking the question and how it’s phrased, but still, liberals are now saddled with visions of disorder, discontent, upheaval, and unhappiness. Voters are weary. Sometimes people just want to live their lives. Inflation, immigration, homelessness, and global unrest have all added to a sense that the world is out of control.
The tide is turning on some of these domestic issues, but it feels too late. And on the global front, the answers seem even more elusive. Some people obviously think an authoritarian strong man is what’s needed, even one who has said he’ll “encourage [Russia] do whatever the hell it wants.”
We have a choice — Trump or Harris. With Trump, we’re pretty sure what we’re getting; with Harris, many feel we’d be taking a chance. How much will she pivot from Biden’s agenda? How much will she chart her own course? Who is she really? Her surrogates, after all, include AOC and Liz Cheney, who Trump recently suggested should experience a firing squad. But who’s really the bigger risk?
Trump has already remade the Supreme Court, overturning the Chevron doctrine and Roe v. Wade. Harris is leaning heavily into abortion rights — and all women’s issues. Even though there’s not much that can be done in the short-term, we know she will prevent a nationwide abortion ban. Trump’s view varies with the day, but we know where Harris stands. And on healthcare and tax policy, we know where her priorities lie.
Similarly, on democracy and the rule of law, there is no question. The resurrection of the Stop the Steal movement is already underway. “I have a plan and strategy,” Ivan Raiklin, a former Green Beret and MAGA operative, told a group of Pennsylvania activists earlier this month. “And then January 6th is going to be pretty fun.”
Lastly, on fitness for office, forget about it. Former Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, said he believed that Trump would govern as a dictator if re-elected, suggesting he fits “into the general definition of fascist.” Reading from a definition he found online, Kelly said, “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy.”
Signing onto an open letter along with 12 other former Trump administration officials backing up John Kelly’s assessment, Elizabeth Neumann, former deputy chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, said she agreed that Trump has “authoritarian tendencies” and “does not operate by the rule of law.” I haven’t even gotten to the show the Trump campaign put on at Madison Square Garden.
For me, we know more than enough about these candidates. This isn’t just an anti-Trump vote. The choice is clear. I endorse Kamala Harris for President. I voted for Kamala Harris for President — and I hope you do, too.
